Last weekend I stopped at the Leinenkugels brewery in WI. They had an imperial IPA that I really liked. They state it has 5 hops and I have never brewed an IPA yet and need some thoughts or advice to get me started. I listed the general ingredients below according to their website they state the IBUs come out to an 80. Any suggestions on the order to add these hops and est amounts for a 5 gallon batch? I have only used cascade prior so don't know much about the others.

As a general rule of thumb for IPA's, I use one large dose of hops (probably warrior) at the begginning of the boil to get about 80-90% of the total IBU's. then add more hops at 5 minute initervals for the last 15-20 min. make sure to add at least an ounce in the last minute or two.

Hopefully someone who has tried the Liney's IPA can chime in and be more specific. One option: blend the cascade, simcoe, amarillo and citra together and divide into 1 oz blend portions. use these for your late additions.

For the mash, I would probably do 148-150 for at least one hour. I test to see if conversion is done with iodine. I like the low mash temp on big ipas so they get nive and dry.

My preferred method of dry hopping is to sanitize a large muslin bag, add sanitized weights (ss washers work great) add leaf hops and tie up. Put in a keg and rack beer into keg for about 2 weeks. No need to sanitize the hops.

Man thats a lot of hops.... I usually do...
1oz 60 min top of boil and add 1oz every 15 min. And then either put one more oz at 5 min. Left or put it in the secondary...

Though my IPA's have been labeled more in the style of ESB... I may try to move the additions to the last 15 minutes and add it every 5 minutes??? That may move the profile away from a bitter slightly no?

8 oz is alot of hops, but when it comes to big IPA's the sky is the limit. Check out clone recipes for "maharaja" and "pliny the elder" if you think I'm kidding.

The hop schedule that I put on there is VERY similar to a 8.4% IPA I recently made with all 7C's hops (hop blend of cascade, citra, centennial, columbus, etc). I have made IPA's with small hop additions at around 30-40 min, but I tend to get a better product with the schedule I listed above. YMMV

If i were going to brew this (without knowing more about the beer), I would leave the warrior addition where it is, and blend all of the other hops together in a big bowl. then divide the blend into 1 oz portions and use the hop blend for flavor/aroma/dry hop additions. My $.02

Thanks for the suggestions on this, I'm gonna get the recipe squared away and get my ingredients to hopefully brew this in July. Tdogg I'll PM you if it turns out maybe I can send the real with our version. Thanks again for the advice. I'll keep you posted through this thread.